Recently, the Maxwell stress tensor has been used to calculate many optical properties of beams, such as the angular momentum [1]}, the density flux [2]}, [3]} and the counter-propagation vortexes [4]}. Some force and torque problems have also been approached using it [5]}. Also the scattering of invariants beams for arbitrary homogeneous dielectric particles (Bessel [6]}, [7]}, Weber [8]}, Mathieu [9]}) can be benefited of the employment of this tensor [10]}.
However, a general formulation in terms of scalar fields has not been presented; such presentation can provide new physical insight, apart from simplifying the theoretical treatment by choosing only certain modes for a particular problem and also including “interference between modes”.
